Bangert: Tears for Jake’s, RIP memories for more long-lost places near Purdue

Jake's Roadhouse is history after 21 years a few blocks from Purdue. What other places no longer with us near Purdue do you miss most?

Buy Photo

Jake's Roadhouse in the Chauncey Hill Mall Thursday, August 9, 2018, in West Lafayette. Jake's Roadhouse announced Wednesday evening that it had closed its doors for good after business hours last Saturday.(Photo: John Terhune/Journal & Courier, )Buy Photo

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The tears continue to fall for Purdue students of recent vintage over the end of the 21-year run of Jake's Roadhouse, where owners stepped aside ahead of the redevelopment of Chauncey Hill Mall, a few blocks from Purdue University.

Between that and the impending demise of Chauncey Hill Mall as we know it – after the end of the 2018-19 school year, as developers and remaining shop owners would prefer you to know – the memories are still working overtime about Breakfast Club costumes and free late-night hot dogs served up at Jake’s. (Even Discount Den dedicated free Den Pops last week to pour out for its Chauncey Hill Mall dearly departed neighbor.)

But what other near-campus places no longer with us – RIP, Stabilizer; we hardly knew ya, Hop Scotch; where did you go, Garcia’s? – do you miss most? Like so many things in West Lafayette, with its heavy rotation of restaurants, bars and shops near campus, what one graduating class experienced isn’t quite the same as one following a decade later.

Here’s to our neighbor of many years. This Free Pop Friday, pour one out for Jake’s! Stop in from 3:30-5:30 today and show this post to the cashier for your free 32oz Den pop.… https://t.co/jJUzoP4fTI

Pete’s, Northwestern Avenue and Columbia Street

Before the front-end loaders came to clear the site in 2004, Pete’s was the place where many Purdue undergrad nights came to an end in the West Lafayette Village. It went through a couple of iterations – Pete’s, Wig’s, Hoops and back to Pete’s, again – but it always attracted quite a cross-section of town and gown.

Justin Watterson, a Purdue student who was working at the former Whirlpool facility on Kalberer Road, said he saw it from both sides, with the student crowd and then the more blue-collar, townie feel after late shifts with co-workers.

“I got off at 11 p.m., and we could cram in a couple of hours of $3-cover penny beer before close,” said Watterson, who now lives in Frankfort, Kentucky, and works for the Kentucky Center for Statistics. “They’d have last call and close out to ‘American Pie’ nightly. … Every other establishment sort of had its cliques, but at Hoops, as it was known then, we were just a motley assortment of, well, something you might hear in a Denis Leary song.”

Today, it’s a courtyard at the back of the West Lafayette Public Library.

Utopia Diner, Chauncey Hill Mall

In early July, as I compiled “Tales of Chauncey Hill Mall” – about the connections and memories of certain generations of local high school and Purdue kids who made it ground zero of their social scene – someone sent a note saying that patrons could write a book about Utopia Diner, open for omelets, plates of fries and bottomless cups of coffee for roughly 10 years, starting in the mid-‘90s.

“I met my partner at Utopia,” Anne Baiel of West Lafayette said. “Utopia Diner was the go-to place for me and my friends. We had such huge groups take over the restaurant, pulling all the tables in the middle together and bogarting the jukebox. Countless hours were spent talking, drinking coffee and writing on napkins. I really hope we tipped well. …

“All these years and two children later, we still reminisce over Utopia.”

The Where Else? Bar is where Utopia once was in Chauncey Hill Mall.

Garcia’s Pizza, Chauncey Hill Mall

For more than two decades, Garcia’s was the point position for the crowds of skaters, bands and Purdue students who hung out at the outdoor patio and tables and in the shops at Chauncey Hill Mall.

“Chauncey or, more specifically, Garcia’s is where I made many friends and discovered the local punk and metal scene in the late-‘80s to early-‘90s,” said Ron Halsema, now owner of Halsema Custom Crafts in downtown Lafayette.

“Garcia’s, in addition to teen budget friendly pizza by the slice, had a cool, multi-tiered interior and small handful of arcade games made it the ultimate pre- and post-show gathering place,” Halsema said. “We were found almost nightly either outside at the tables or inside usually on the tier above the front door. After devouring a slice of sausage pizza drowned in garlic butter, we would hang out, play cards or just generally loiter, sometimes until we were asked to leave.”

Alexander Shane Pirolo, now an executive chef for Greek House Chefs in West Lafayette, hung out there, too.

“It’s hard to pick a favorite between Utopia Diner and Garcia’s Pizza,” Pirolo said. “Even with both establishments being gone for nearly 20 years there’s not a day that goes by that my memory won’t recall a hidden moment from my glory days at Chauncey Hill.”

Garcia’s closed in 2001, giving way to a number of pizza places, including Browny’s Pizza King, Roxy’s and Hot Box, which is there now.

AJ Wingers, 112 Northwestern Ave.

Opened in 1996, AJ Wingers took its shot at the late-night campus bar scene by specializing in chicken wings. But after changing hands, the bar was going for something different from about 2003 until it closed in 2005.

“Wingers introduced me to the great Lafayette tradition of ‘failing business turns to live music in hopes to turn things around,’ a practice that I would soon participate in and have never forgotten,” said Jeremiah Beaver, former owner of Downtown Records on Sixth Street in Lafayette.

The punk scene, driven by local acts and DJs, thrived at AJ Wingers. The business was a different story.

“They would often run out of food, never had any for the night to begin with, or pulled kitchen staff to serve drinks or run the door during shows,” Beaver said. “It was common to walk into Wingers, even when there wasn't a show, and see the bar and tables littered with Subway bags because the kitchen was closed.”

When AJ Wingers closed, a chunk of the music scene migrated with Beaver and Downtown Records co-owner Mike Booth. “The small used vinyl shop also became desperate for business and we turned to live music to try to bring in the crowds,” Beaver said. “We only lasted a couple of years, as well.”

The Egyptian Café is in the former AJ Wingers slot along Northwestern Avenue.

Hop Scotch, Chauncey Hill Mall

There were dozens of stores and restaurants that came and went at Chauncey Hill Mall: Pants Explosion, a clothing store with a dynamite name that was among the first shops to open in late 1979 and among the first to close, after the entire mall opened in June 1980; PJ Woofers, a hot dog joint; and Groucho’s Men’s Fashions.

But nothing quite equaled Hop Scotch.

In January 1983, owner Richard Stewart, president of the Lafayette-based Rex Rabbit Corp., rolled out what he believed was the first fast food restaurant built around a menu of Southern fried rabbit. He made statewide and national news with the novelty restaurant. He didn’t intend for the Chauncey Hill location to be the last.

“We are specifically gearing our first restaurant to the college community, hoping that if they like it, they will take the memory with them after graduation and hopefully encourage us to expand our restaurant concept,” Stewart told the Journal & Courier at the time.

Who didn’t like it was the Indiana Secretary of State’s office, which in July 1983 issued a cease and desist order for Hop Scotch and Rex Rabbit, which was selling equipment and breeding stock to potential suppliers for the restaurant. The state cited Stewart for failure to register as a franchiser. The state also questioned the promises Stewart made to rabbit ranchers that they could have markets selling pelts and the meat. Hop Scotch never reopened.

Alfano’s Pizza, 380 Brown St.

I’m not sure which I miss most: the radio ad, circa 1993, featuring local hard rock band Eightball cranking out, “Alfano’s Peet-za! Alfano’s Peet-za!” or the joint’s stuffed breadsticks, which essentially were pizzas rolled up. Alfano’s, open for more than a decade in West Lafayette’s Levee area, disappeared by 1998.

Pat Yoder, now an account executive living in Monticello, said he started going to Alfano’s when his girlfriend – now his wife – was living on campus.

“I was hooked from the first bite. From there on out, that was kind of our favorite go-to meal,” said Yoder, who admitted he never could deeper into the menu than the pepperoni/mushroom/extra cheese stuffed breadstick. “When they closed down, it was kind of a gut punch, but I suppose all things move on. Still would like to see someone try to recreate the delicious, carb-loaded fat fests. They were awesome.”

JL Records expanded into the space Alfano’s left behind.

Locomotives, 124 Howard Ave.

Locomotive’s had a nice run from 1988 to 1992 as a stage for touring bands three nights a week, along with another night for open mic. It typically handled the regional acts that weren’t ready to draw crowds big enough to fill Nick’s Nightclub, another lost landmark a few blocks away on the Levee.

“I remember seeing the Vulgar Boatmen a few times at Locomotives along with tons of other shows featuring local bands,” said Guy Crundwell, who played in the Velmas, among other bands, during his days at Purdue and now is a chemistry professor at Central Connecticut State University.

“But the Boatmen at Locomotives was always an event,” Crundwell said. “Hazy memories. Dancing. Beer in hand. Sweat raining off shaking heads. Drenched clothes. Shoes sticking yet shuffling on a beer-coated floor. What I do recall specifically was coming out of the bathroom after hearing the first two chords of one of my favorite Boatmen tracks and seeing all my friends pogoing to the beat like some sort of Midwest drunken Peanuts dance party.”

Locomotives went through a number of other names and themes – live music to sports bars – before closing for good nearly a decade ago. The sight now is a parking lot across from Nine Irish Brothers.

The Stabilizer, 125 Pierce St.

The Stabilizer was a place of legends.

“Just ask anyone who went there,” said Karen Stauffer, a Purdue grad living in Indianapolis. “It stood out at the time. And it was never repeated, no matter how hard anyone tried, no matter how many times I come back to campus.”

Across Pierce Street from Harry’s Chocolate Shop, Stabilizer was what West Lafayette History and Research Advisory Council called a “counter culture bar,” opening in 1976. (Around Purdue, “counter culture” references generally need to be taken with a grain of salt.) Previously a place to rent a freezer locker for sides of beef and then The Barefoot Boy restaurant, the Stabilizer became home to blues and rock shows, featuring blues legends – John Lee Hooker and Lonnie Mack – to regional party band favorites Kool Ray & the Polaroidz.

The Stabilizer went under in 1988. It had a run again as a campus bar under the name T.A. Tom’s. The building has been gone since the early-2000s, when Purdue built Rawls Hall.

Quincey’s Tavern, Chauncey Hill Mall

Quincey’s was a fairly short-lived campus bar, open through the mid-‘80s and eventually giving way to The Stacks and the Wabash Yacht Club. But as you’re weighing the fresh angst over Jake’s, consider this from Purdue grad Danny Breidenbach.

“I’ve got a soft spot for Quincey’s because a neighbor had a black lab named Quincy,” Breidenbach said. “And we had a cat named Knickerbocker. Naming pets after favorite bars: How college is that?”

YOUR TURN: What long-lost bar, restaurant or business do you miss near Purdue? Send your memories to dbangert@jconline.com.

Reach Dave Bangert at 765-420-5258 or at dbangert@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @davebangert.